Welcome to Prostate Cores, the Substack newsletter

Abstracts on Active Surveillance, low- to favorable intermediate-risk PCa, BPH, prostatitis and cancer survivorship will be the focuses in this blog. First issue coming soon.

By Howard Wolinsky

Three years ago, I launched TheActiveSurveillor.com on the popular Substack newsletter platform. And I am announcing here a companion blog, Prostate Cores, abstracts not only on Active Surveillance but also BPH, prostatitis and cancer survivorship.

Some background: About 2,000 readers from more than 60 countries and 49 states have subscribed to the Surveillor, whose readers include some of the top prostate cancer researchers in the world as well as everyday patients on Active Surveillance and even some men with advanced cancer.

Substack lists the Active Surveillor newsletter as a “best seller.” Doesn’t seem like many to me when you consider 300,000 men in the U.S. alone are diagnosed with prostate cancer—up to half of them have low-risk PCa and would be candidates for AS,

But Substack know better abiut readership of the blogs it publishes.

I am grateful to the readers I have. The Active Surveillor has even gone viral with 62,000 readers of a post on King Charles III being diagnosed with a still undisclosed cancer—not prostate though he had issues with BPH— a year ago.

The Active Surveillor campaigns for, among other things, avoiding unnecessary biopsies, diagnoses and unnecessary surveillance, safer transperineal biopsies to avoid deadly sepsis and infections, making AS available in the inner city and rural areas, and redefining Gleason 6 as a noncancer.

The Surveillor recently expanded its horizons and hosted its first event: “AS 2025: The Year In Review” featuring top prostate experts on Jan.4. I’ll soon be making the video available and reporting on highlights.

The webinar was supposed to be 1 1/2 hours. But most of the experts and patients stuck around for an extra half hour. And then after the gurus were gone, 100 of 135 attendees remained in the Zoom session for yet another hour.

And we mainly talked about BPH. You don’t have to be royalty like King Chas to be coping with BPH.

The hunger these men have for health information struck me. because men usually are portrayed as being uninformed about health issues. These men had loads of questions, and they want answers.

Not just for AS, but especially for BPH or enlarged prostates. BPH is the most common prostate problem in men over 50. It affects about 50% of men between the ages of 51 and 60.and that number increases with age:

• Age 60 to 69: 70% of men have BPH

• Over 70: Around 80% of men have BPH

This is huge. And I have largely ignored it because I am not affected.

Urologic oncologist Adam Weiner, assistant professor and urologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said, “While there is no direct connection between BPH and prostate cancer, the chances of finding prostate cancer at the time of a BPH surgery ranges from 3-17%.”

Enter Prostate Cores

So I decided to launch this newsletter, Prostate Cores, to cover AS material not covered in the Active Surveillor, as well as BPH, prostatitis and some men’s health issues and cancer survivorship in general.

Prostate cores of course are the tiny biopsy samples used to determine whether we have prostate cancer or whether it is advancing. I could have called it prostate chips, after the tissue removed from the prostate during BPH surgery.

But I like Cores better because these cores sample the prostate. Prostate chips sounds like a gross type of snack. Feh, as my grandmother would say.

How will this work?

I oplan to inform and educate a aklittle and give you the links you need to go deeper if you wish.

Things will be different in this blog. The emphasis will be on short and fast. This will be a quick read with nuggets of information for readers who want to get their information fast and move on.

I may run an occasional in-depth article, but the main focus will be on abstracts, short summaries, of research, and also of interesting blogs and articles related to being a patient with prostate disease. I’ll provide links if readers want to explore the topics in more detail.

I will publish once a month. The Active Surveillor is published as news happens and when I think it should be published, two to three times a week. Please, give it a whirl and see if it meets your needs.

People tend to think information on the internet is free. I can assure you, it’s not. I am at my word processing for hours every week. My own choice, but I have passed up lucrative work in favor of this passion project.

I want to keep up these newsletters but can’t go broke doing it.

I ended up in the red with The Active Surveillor because I was timid about charging for my time and overhead. An AS friend suggested that I charge $1,000/year like some stock tip newsletter. But I couldn’t do it.

This information can have an impact on people’s lives so I am reluctant to not share it with everyone. But I hope they can help me by paying something to keep the lights on in the growing Surveillor empire,

A long-time reader/supporter told me: “I appreciate you and your work, my friend. I would not be bashful in charging for what you provide to all of us and getting your work covered adequately so you can also cover not only your costs but your time and then some to make it worthwhile.”

I agree. But I want to keep charges down for a monthly publication.

I plan to charge: $5/month, the least Substack allows. You can save money by paying $40/year.

There will be the usual free subscriptions with the same content available as to paying subscribers. I couldn’t do it another way.

Howard Wolinsky

P.S. Let me know if you run into a study you think should be shared. I’m at howard.wolinsky@gmail.com